Marina: If you voted for Trump, and I know this isn’t a significant percentage – about half of you voted for a man who says that it’s okay to grab women by the p*ssy. Well, not quite half of you because – ahem – the popular vote and all that. The electoral college is only a problem when your candidate doesn’t win, right? And I get it. You wanted a change. You got one.
My friends and my family, people I know, people I don’t know, are terrified. Women, people of color, Muslims, immigrants, disabled people, gay people, bi people, trans people – people who are branded as different – we are scared for our lives.
Donald has always thrived off of fear-mongering. He has built his entire political campaign around painting our political climate around the worst possible scenario: diversity and progress as something to actively fear.
Well, here we are.
We are afraid. This is the worst possible scenario.
A man who has never been told “no” sits on a throne that you built for him.
A man who is exempt from paying taxes.
A man who thinks he can have his way with women’s bodies, despite their objections.
A man who our series of checks and balances will utterly fail.
As president.
When marginalized people say that we are afraid, we are afraid of a looming reality that we see unfolding arise as hate speech, harassment, threats of violence, and now actual violence.
“Go home.”
“You don’t belong here.”
“Make America great again.”
As long as you’re white and a man and straight and Christian.
The list goes on.
Hate is no longer banished to the sidelines.
Discrimination and prejudice are no longer fringe positions.
If they ever were in the first place.
I don’t think they were.
The fire that’s been quietly kindling in homes across the nations, hidden behind closed doors and screens, on the tip of white Americas tongue and quickly swallowed to keep up the guise of equality.
Equality is a fairytale you tell your children at night before you build walls in your sleep to keep out anyone who doesn’t look like you.
The wildfire is spreading.
It burns in the hearts of Klansmen publicly celebrating “New America.”
Or is it just a slightly repackaged version of Old America?
I really can’t tell anymore.
But it also burns in the hearts of politicians, police officers, businessmen, blue collar workers, students, ministers, and maybe even you.
More white men and women voted in this election for Trump than they have for other Republicans in the either of past two elections.
It’s like you were waiting for a match to strike to strike against us, burn us to the ground.
Or maybe you were just waiting for someone else to hold the match.
